Dr. Joanna Bettmann Schaefer is a professor at the University of Utah College of Social Work and a licensed clinical social worker. She received her B.A. with honors from Dartmouth College in 1993, her MSW from the University of Utah in 1999, and her Ph.D. from Smith College School for Social Work in 2005. Dr. Schaefer has received numerous honors, including the 2023 Betty van der Smitten Distinguished Researcher Award from the Association for Experiential Education, the 2019 Council on Social Work Education’s Summer Scholarship for Harvard Institutes of Higher Education, the 2013 Dean’s Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award, the 2011 Psychoanalytic Psychodynamic Research Society Award, a fellowship with the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the 1993 Lawrence Marx Jr. Award of Dartmouth College. She serves as clinical faculty in the University of Utah Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Schaefer writes and researches on a range of topics, including nature’s impact on mental health, wilderness therapy, residential treatment, and attachment. She is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Experiential Education. She has presented her research nationally and internationally at professional conferences over the last 20 years.